The other day, the missus and I went to visit one of her friends to do some drinking. The friend had laid out a nice spread of food and said I ought to taste the curry as it was special. Neither speak any english so couldn't tell me what it was exactly though they called it Kang. Very good taste and texture. So what is this beast called in English? They said it was small and dark coloured and lives in trees.

Eternal transcription problem...

แกง means 'Thai style curry (soup)' and some people might transcribe that as 'kang' even though 'gang' or 'gaeng' would be more on the mark. Is it possible they misunderstood your questions and just assured you you were eating curry, and not actually talking about the name of the animal?

A bat is ค้างคาว '[H]khaang [M]khaao' ...

ค่าง [F]khaang is a 'langur' or 'leaf monkey' ...

Thanks meadish but my spoken Thai is reasonable. They were not refering to the dish being a curry. It was a pat pet Kang - the Kang being a type of animal/meat, nothing to do with keng(curry).

Didnt see your picture of the leaf monkey. That will be what it was. Fits with the small, and black and lives in trees. So not only are they tasty, but also quite cute.

I googled pad ped kang ( ผัดเผ็ดค่าง ) and found a forum with beautiful photos of a leaf monkey. One of the replies to the thread below:

แต่ละภาพแจ่ม ๆ ทั้งนั้นครับ

ปกติกินผัดเผ็ดค่างบ่อย แต่เห็นหน้ามันแล้วไม่ค่อยอยากกินเลย

ไปหาตัวอื่นกินดีกว่า

__________________

"Each and every picture is really clear/smooth. I eat langur fried in curry spices regularly, now that I've seen its face I don't really want to anymore.

Better find something else to eat."

gaeng pet ped yang? Then again we don't know where you were